looneytunesfandomcom-20200223-history
Fighting Tools
|image = Fighting_tools_title.png |Director = Bob ClampettPrivate Snafu Golden Classics |producer = Leon Schlesinger Dr. Seuss |airdate = October 1943 (Army-Navy Screen Magazine issue 13) |series = Private Snafu |Voice = Mel Blanc |Starring = Private Snafu |previous = The Infantry Blues |next = The Home Front |video = |Writer = Phil Eastman |Animators = Manny Gould Robert McKimson Thomas McKimson Virgil Ross Rod Scribner |Layout-artist = |Background-artist = |Sound effects = Treg Brown |Musician = Carl Stalling }} Fighting Tools is a 1943 Private Snafu short directed by Bob Clampett. Plot Newspaper headlines praise the quality of America's war equipment. One reads "Battle reports prove U.S. soldier best armed in the world!" while a more cautionary line reads, "Our fighting tools unbeatable if given the proper care." Private Snafu reads the paper lying inside his tent, confidently singing that thanks to his quality equipment, he will be "the war's greatest hero." Meanwhile, a Nazi soldier armed with a hand grenade is sneaking into Snafu's camp. Snafu finally notices the intruder and moves to intercept him; however, he has foolishly stuck his Garand rifle muzzle-first into the muddy ground. He pulls his gun out of the mud and tells the Nazi to give up. The Nazi is frightened until he notices that the gun is clogged with mud. Snafu tries to shoot, but all that comes out of the gun is mud. Snafu desperately swats the Nazi with his rifle and then races to his next available weapon, a M1917 Browning machine gun. He opens fire at the Nazi, but because he has neglected to fill the gun's water tank, the Browning quickly overheats and melts. The Nazi then tells Snafu that the Germans give their weapons great care, pulling out a knife underneath Snafu's nose to make his point. Snafu makes a run for it and points a cannon at the Nazi, but before he can fire, a mouse and a family of ducks emerge from the barrel, showing that due to neglect of cleaning it, the barrel has become clogged with all sorts of garbage. The Nazi blows into the front of the cannon, expelling the garbage out of the breech. Snafu flees to his jeep and attempts to start it, but it will not start because he has let the battery run down. The Nazi throws his grenade, which blows the jeep and Snafu into the sky. Snafu lands nude in a German POW camp, where the Nazi soldier tauntingly calls him the "war's greatest... zero." Availability * (2010) Blu-ray, DVD - Private Snafu: Golden Classics (Thunderbean Animation) Notes * This is the first Private Snafu cartoon to be directed by Bob Clampett. * One of the headlines on the paper, "Adolph Hitler Commits Suicide", was also used in another Clampett cartoon, "Tortoise Wins by a Hare". Coincidentally, the real Adolf Hitler would commit suicide in April 1945. * After the Browning gun melts, the German comments that Snafu has forgotten to connect it to its water supply. However, the tank he indicates is actually a steam condensing canister, which collects the water evaporated in the gun's cylindrical barrel jacket (the weapon's actual water tank) for later refilling. References Category:1943 Category:Cartoons directed by Bob Clampett Category:Shorts Category:Black-and-white cartoons Category:Private Snafu Cartoons Category:Public domain films Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc Category:Cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger